辞書 – Why to Read the Dictionary to learn Japanese
There are several ways to learn Japanese. You can take courses, watch anime or other videos in Japanese, go to Japan to learn, talk with Japanese people online, or whatever you like. Out of all the approaches available one that most people probably will not be so excited about would be reading the dictionary. This approach however was a huge part of how I learned Japanese. So before discounting it let me explain how and when to do it correctly in order to get the most out of your Japanese studies.
INDEX
How I used the Dictionary to Learn Japanese
I will just give you the basics here but I explain more about this, and how I learned Japanese vocabulary below if you are interested.
https://japaneseuniverse.com/2021/09/04/how-i-learned-japanese-words/
So what I did was dedicate three months to reading a Japanese to English dictionary every day. I would pick a section for that day and read through it over and over. The next day I would do the same with the next section.
If I thought I knew a word well enough, or even a whole page or so I would skip it. I did not want to spend time on things I thought I knew. So, over the three months I spent less and less time on reading. I also began skipping more. This continued to the point where I would just skim through the whole dictionary daily several times.
Did I learn Japanese from the Dictionary?
I did not become fluent in Japanese just from reading the dictionary. But, it gave me a huge boost in comprehension and speaking.
Right after my three months of intense study I spent a year in Japan. On day one however I could already understand quite a bit of what people said and could say what I was thinking well. This was mostly thanks to getting a good grasp of the vocabulary in this dictionary. I did not understand everything of course and still had lots and lots of trouble speaking naturally. I was however able to communicate in Japanese.
How much did the Dictionary help?
Before going to Japan I had some Japanese people I knew. I had an exchange student, which I lived with for a year and other friends that I meet with regularly for about two years. Mostly we only spoke English but they would speak to each other in Japanese. I barely understood a word.
During that time I listened to music, tried to read stuff in Japanese, and studied some Japanese from text books. I also read the dictionary during downtime. But, I did not notice any major improvements until after I my three months of reading the dictionary. I went from understanding 0% ~ 20% to about 70% ~ 80%.
Why did my Japanese improve with the Dictionary?
Basically, I believe that reading the dictionary improved my Japanese in two ways.
- Word Recognition
- Active Vocabulary
Word Recognition
As you learn more words the unintelligible string of sounds people say becomes digestible. Meaning, the string of sounds will more and more be broken up into blocks of understanding. These blocks or understanding or words you know allow you to focus on meaning. This takes a load off of your brain so you don’t need to try to understand every single sound. This makes what people say sound shorter too.
As I read more of the dictionary I created more of these blocks and it allowed me to actually hear meaning instead of sound.
Active Vocabulary
Reading the dictionary over and over is basically spaced repetition. The more you read words the more you activate them in your vocabulary. Meaning, when you are speaking the easier they are to pull out and use at the right moment.
How Should you use the Dictionary to Learn Japanese?
There are lots of reasons to use the dictionary. There are also limitations on using the dictionary. Let’s take a look
Pros for Using the Dictionary
The two main pros for using the dictionary are exposure to words, and freedom.
More Exposure in Less Time
When learning a list of words as the list gets longer so do the number of words you remember. A dictionary is basically a long word list. Every other learning method has a lower concentration of words you can expose yourself to at one time. If you read a text book, do flashcards or whatever you will be exposed to less words in the same amount of time you would if you read the dictionary.
More Freedom in What you Learn
If you do flashcard apps or software everything is calculated to give you the words you are suppose to not know at the right time. I have used websites like Memrise which are very good learning tools. They are also annoying at the same time. It is nice not to have to think about if you know or don’t know a word. But, sometimes these flashcard systems seem to overload you with too much stuff you would rather not review. Reading the dictionary on my own I was able to learn to trust my intuition. I would read and I could feel when I knew a word or did not need to review it. This allowed me to skip pages and words that I would have been forced to review elsewhere.
Cons for Using the Dictionary
There are also two huge cons to think about when learning from the dictionary.
No Context
It is easier to read real content than just words in a list. When reading real content the words on the page are a mix of words you know and don’t know. These words are together in a natural context that makes sense in the sentence. This aids your learning ability to see how words are used in that context. On the other hand, the dictionary is a large list of mostly new words you never heard of out of context. So, you can learn to translate between words in Japanese and English but it is hard to learn what the words themselves mean. For that you need more context to tell you where and when to use that word.
Intense and Boring
Reading a page of 50 unknown words in a dictionary is mentally taxing. Every word is a separate item of information you are trying to learn. This will quickly wear you out. If you read just words all day you will easily get headaches or feel fatigued. It is good to take breaks at least, or know when to stop all together when it gets too much.
Suggestions
So despite the cons, reading the dictionary is a powerful method to learning Japanese. When done right this simple method can give you a boost in your comprehension and speaking in Japanese. So, here are my suggestions if you choose to use this method.
1. Learn the Japanese Alphabet first
This is hard in the beginning but once you can read kanji it will become much easier. Several Japanese words are made up of two pairs of Kanji put together and if you know how to read Kanji the meaning of those word often are obvious without reading the English translation. So when you read the dictionary it will be easier to remember. My suggestion is first learn Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji then jump into the dictionary.
2. Learn basic Japanese grammar at the same time
Japanese words are easier to remember if you can make a sentence with them. As you are learning to read Japanese, also learn basic sentence structure at the same time.
3. Only spend a few seconds reading each wordDon’t worry about about remembering. Just spend long enough to read the word and move on. Also, skim past or skip things you think you are ok with. The point is to passively pick up more and more words. The more you read, the more words you will notice that you know. Then you will be able to focus more on the ones you don’t know as well as you skip the ones you do.
4. Pace Yourself
Try setting a small goal at first of 5 to 10 pages, or 250 to 500 words a day. Do not try to memorize just read the words and then the next day move to the next set to 250 to 500 words. After you get through the whole dictionary go back to the beginning and repeat the process. Once you learn to not focus so much on every word set a timer for 10 to 30 minutes and read as much as you can until the timer runs out. You will progressively get quicker at reading and be able to cover more pages as time goes by.
5. Continue this method until you feel you can understand about 98% of native textsAbout 9000 words is what you need to have 98% coverage of a language, meaning you can read through a page of 100 words and on average you will not know 2 of them. 98% is a magic percentage, it is about the coverage you need to comfortably be able to read a text without a dictionary and still have a mostly good grasp of what the text was about.
So those are my suggestions on how to use the dictionary to learn Japanese. If you are interested in learning Japanese I have reviewed what I consider the best resource for Japanese Grammar below:
